


How many superpowered gamers does it take to screw a light bulb

by FoundFandomFamilies



Series: Gee Mae, how come your mum lets you have /two/ Lunch Club AUs [1]
Category: Lunch Club, Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst, Bad Attempts at Humour, Future hurt/comfort probably, Gen, It’s just some guys being dudes, Some dudes being superpowered, Superpowers AU, What the fuck is an “editing?”, crack? is that what you smoke? you smoke crack?, fuck you, imsorryiloveyoupleasereadmything, one shots, t a g s
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-03
Updated: 2020-08-08
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:41:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 9,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24528577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FoundFandomFamilies/pseuds/FoundFandomFamilies
Summary: “I didn’t save several babies from burning buildings for this.”“You haven’t saved any babies from burning buildings Schlatt, none of us have.”“Right, but we can all agree that if anyone ever would save a baby from a fire, it’d be me.”“...Well.”“My bets honestly on you starting the fire.”“You're probably the one who put the baby there to start with.”
Relationships: Nothing but platonic friendship in my chucky cheese
Series: Gee Mae, how come your mum lets you have /two/ Lunch Club AUs [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1772671
Comments: 139
Kudos: 268





	1. Ugly Hamsters

**Author's Note:**

> Hello and welcome to whatever this is!   
> I don’t know how frequently I’ll be uploading this, I guess just whenever inspiration hits? It’s just going to be short goofy one shots honestly, so don’t come here for plot cause you,,,most likely won’t be getting it  
> That still, Hope ya enjoy!

"I could totally beat Noah in a race,” Cooper says suddenly, head dangling off the end of the couch. 

“Uh, you could beat  _ all _ of us at a race.” Charlie points out unhelpfully.

“Couldn’t beat Travis,” Carson adds smugly, and Cooper bristles.

“He cheated and I still stand by it.” 

“It’s not his fault Lady Luck blessed that fuck!” Charlie chirps, before squinting his eyes slightly as he tries to read the tv upside down. 

“Can we not talk about how luck blessed Travis’s fuck?” Cooper asks dryly, and Carson devolves into giggles. 

“I don’t know Cooper, I’ve been meaning to have an intervention with him about it,” Carson chokes out between wheezes, and Charlie chuckles.

“Carson you know he’s an unstoppable fuck machine-”

Cooper's expression goes disgusted. “Okay, now this is me genuinely asking for a new conversation line.”

“Homies just jealous cause he’s too fast in bed now-HEY!” Carson yelps and pulls his legs up as Cooper digs his ankles into them hard. Charlie yelps as his footrest is suddenly taken, and he rolls over to glare at them before shoving his feet onto Cooper’s stomach. 

“Wh-Charlie what the hell man?!” Cooper exclaims, slightly winded.

“You guys made me lay on the floor, deal with it.” Charlie grumps without heat, before rolling back over and picking his controller back up, ignoring Cooper’s exaggerated grunt of pain. “Now shush I only have thirty minutes to beat Carson’s high score before the others are home.”

“It’ll never happen,” Carson states confidently, before Cooper takes this chance to stretch his legs out in the space he abandoned. “Oi don’t give me just the corner!”

“Nobody puts Carson in the corner.” Charlie jokes under his breath, before his eye twitches when Carson jabs his legs out onto Cooper’s stomach as well and buries his own. Cooper can sense the situation will only keep escalating. 

“Can we get back to the topic at hand?!” Cooper asks, finally sitting up as the blood had started to run into his head. He pushes both Carson and Charlie’s legs off and ignores their squawks.

Charlie pauses the game. 

“You want to try to race someone who can teleport?” Charlie asks, eyebrows raised. “And you don’t realise the obvious conclusion of that?”

“Slow time.” Carson feels the need to clarify, but it helps Cooper’s case, so he doesn’t question it.

“Exactly! Noah can just slow time down, but since I’m super fast, slowing time for me would just be me normally running! Which I’m still faster at.”

“Is that how it works?” Charlie feels the need to ask, pitching his voice up a little. Cooper narrows his eyes.

“Yes.”

“It would be interesting to test,” Carson says, and Cooper perks up. “If not just to see Cooper get humiliated.” 

“What the fuck did I do to you?!” Cooper asks, and Carson starts rubbing the side of his leg pointedly. “...Aside from just now.”

“You kept sneaking in and out of my stream and pressing the escape button.” Carson deadpans.

“You tied me to the ceiling fan while I was sleeping,” Charlie adds, shivering slightly in memory.

“Also you keep taking away chairs right as I’m going to sit on them.” Carson continues.

“You attempted to do the thing from Star Wars with me and my head still hurts.” Charlie whines.

“And there was that one time with the clown-”

“Okay, I get it!” Cooper interrupts, “I did one thing!”

“Well-”

“Well-”

“Look can we get back on track?” Cooper asks, and the other two shrug.

“I mean, sure, give it a shot-“ Carson starts, only for Charlie to talk over him with a familiar glint in his eye.

“Yeah, more  _ power _ to you!”

“...”

“...”

“So the ceiling fan again?” 

“I’m thinking of just putting him in a jar next time and sending him out at sea,” Cooper responds casually, and Charlie sits up in wide-eyed panic.

“We’re not doing that I’m never shrinking around you guys again-“ 

“Or we could put him on a golf ball and punt him into the sun,” Carson adds suddenly.

“No!”

“I might put him in a box and leave him in Wendy’s parking lot,” Cooper says with an amused chuckle and Charlie lets out a string of affronted gibberish. 

“Say he’s a lost hairless hamster,” Carson suggests, and Cooper snorts.

“Pretty ugly fucking hamster.”

Charlie flops down against the floor and grumpily picks up the controller again.

“I hate you guys.”


	2. Dem Bones

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What if I posted two chapters in one day. Haha just kidding,,,
> 
> Unless

Ted was on a mission.   
  


A very important mission that unfortunately required the assistance of a certain JShitt.

Ted wanders into the kitchen, finding Schlatt browsing the fridge in the early morning right on schedule. He’d pretty much memorised everyone's habits by now, and in instances like this, he planned to use that fact to his advantage.

“So, Schlatt-“ Ted starts, only to be immediately cut off by Schlatt glitches away to sit at the kitchen bench.

“No.” He cuts off, idly starting to flick through a discarded newspaper.

“Wh-I didn’t even say anything!” 

“You didn’t have to.” Schlatt grumps, dark eyes flicking up to him. “I know exactly what you want and it’s not happening.”

“Well, that’s not fair! I’m a multifaceted human being Schlatt, with complicated goals and wishes! I could have been wanting to ask you about many things! Why, I could have just been about to ask how your day was going, only to be rudely-”

Schlatt grabs an apple from the bowl and tosses it up in the air, before taking a huge bite out of it and staring blankly at Ted. “I’m not fucking helping you break into the museum.”  
  


“Yeah okay you got me,” Ted admits shamelessly. “I want to see dem bones Schlatt!”

“And I wanted to never hear you say ‘dem bones’, we can’t all get what we want,” Schlatt grumbles, holding up the newspaper so he doesn’t have to look at Ted. 

“Mm, I’m realising my mistake of trying to do this early in the morning,” Ted says suddenly, and Schlatt briefly tilts the newspaper down to give him a tired look.

“Ya think?”

“Look, please? It would be in and out, you just need to fry the security cameras a little and-“

“No.” Schlatt presses stubbornly. “It’s your own fucking fault you got banned. Break-in yourself.”

“How was I supposed to know they’d react negatively to me asking to see the old junk in the backroom's trunk?”

“...Do you hear yourself? Like ever?”

“Nope. I speak loud so everyone else can do the hearing for me.”

“You know, I couldn’t tell, you’re always so quiet,” Schlatt says pleasantly, and Ted makes a noise of agreement.

“Yeah it’s funny isn’t it.”

“You think you know a guy.” Schlatt starts jokingly, before trailing off as he flicks through the newspaper.

“Are you actually unironically reading that right now?” Ted asks after he’s silent for a while.

“I like to keep up on current times!” Schlatt defends half-heartedly.

“By reading a fossil?”

“Hey I’m not the guy that wants to break into a place to touch dem old bones.”

“Uh, excuse you, it’s not just fossils. Do you have any idea how much I could learn from human history now? I could literally make all the discoveries archeologists dream about.”

“The powers are gone to your head.” Schlatt snarks, and Ted laughs despite his hand suddenly clenching hard around the fridge door handle.

“What can I say? I’m a sucker for history.”

“Why can’t you just put your hands up to dirt?” Schlatt asks, “that’s old right?”

“It helps if the object is specific to focus. I don’t even want to know what kinds of things I’ll see looking into the ground of our backyard.” Ted explains, and Schlatt shrugs.

“I think you’re just making excuses, cause you’re too much of a pansy to get your hands dirty.”

“Excuse you! I’ll have you know I regular cover myself in filth, I crave it in fact-”

“I’m still not helping you.” Schlatt interrupts.

“I’ll give you something in return~.” Ted sings, and Schlatt pauses. He places down the newspaper.

“...I’m listening.”

“I’ll keep you informed on everything that goes on in the kitchen for a week,” Ted states confidently.  
  


Schlatt raises an eyebrow.“How dare you assume I would break my morals just to spy on my friends.”

Now Ted raises an eyebrow. Schlatt smirks.

“Two weeks, and include the lounge.” He says finally, spinning the apple core around his hand.

“Just the kitchen, One week and a half.”

“One week and a half, just the lounge room.”   
  


“One week, lounge room and kitchen!”

“One week, kitchen, lounge and backyard.”

“Deal!”

“Pleasure doing business,” Schlatt says with a smirk, and Ted’s just glad it’s over.

“Oh no, the pleasures all mine. So, here’s what I’m thinking, we-”

“Sorry, what was that?” Schlatt asks, newspaper already back up again. “Couldn’t hear you over the hilarious Garfield comic I’m reading. Hey, do you think if you touched this newspaper you could see the ancient history of why Jon Arbuckle is such a hot piece of ass?”

Ted sighs and hits his head softly against the fridge.

“Hey, maybe you could figure out who’s been eating all the leftover pizza too history boy!”


	3. Changes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me: I'm gonna make a fun goofy story!  
> Me the next day: *immediately posts angst*  
> Me: Ah fuck

When they got powers, everything changed. 

Not just the obvious of course. Charlie couldn’t regularly change his size from squirrel to house before that's for sure, and Cooper was not that fast.

But other things changed too.

Ted never touched people now. Ted waved, Ted smiled, Ted never did handshakes. At dinner, or movie night, Ted was always on his own separate seat. It was never really spoken about. Just a sudden new fact of their life to add to all the other facts.

Carson had only asked why once, and he didn’t like the answer.

“Objects, walls, that’s all past stuff baby!” Ted had replied, tone carefully dismissive like it always gets about this. “But you guys? Humans?” Ted swallows uncomfortably, before grinning widely and speaking in a chipper tone that doesn’t match the clear pain in his eyes. “That’s all futures.”

Noah hates hospitals. He hates doctors and clinics and white rooms filled with medical equipment. They all did, really, but Noah especially. With a hatred that made them lose him sometimes into his head. When there’d been an accident in the backyard that had resulted in a broken arm, Noah had put up a kind of fight Carson had never seen in him before. They’d agreed, reluctantly, to not go.

But only because they were all terrified themselves. 

“I can take care of it myself. I don’t need some medical freaks poking around and making it worse.” Noah states, shoulders raised in challenge despite his obvious winces of pain. “Stop trying to make this a thing. It’s not a thing. It doesn’t matter.”

  
  


Schlatt doesn’t touch people. Schlatt hates doctors. Schlatt also hates phones. 

  
This one wasn’t an issue to figure out, because he was extremely loud about that fact. Just, not the actual reasons. He talked about how they were fiddly, and tacky looking, and how ‘people should just talk face to face more nowadays’. He didn’t talk about that time Travis won a new phone, and how he started to hyperventilate when Travis had innocently asked if he wanted to look at it.

Schlatt getting scared doesn’t scare Carson as much as it obviously terrifies Schlatt.

“So what? You think I got fucking trauma or some shit?” Schlatt asks, fire in his eyes looking to fight, but his entire posture being ready to flee. “Is that what it is? Grow up, Carson.” He laughs emotionlessly. “We’re all fucked up now.”

Cooper’s afraid of water. He stubbornly refuses to admit it, but it’s getting hard to deny at this point. He’s fine with it in cups, less fine taking showers but manageable, but never fine getting submerged. They’d only found out about it after Cooper had pushed himself to the limit, and broken down in front of them at the pool. 

It felt hours before they even got a response, and even then Cooper refuses to talk about it like it never happened. Carson finds Cooper underwater again in his nightmare that night.

“Drop it, Carson.” Cooper grumps, shoving his trembling hands in his hoodie pocket and flicking his eyes away. “We all had bad shit happen, okay? So drop it. It doesn’t matter.” Tired bloodshot eyes reach his own, and Carson knows then he probably doesn’t look much better. “Focus on yourself for Christ sake.”

  
Charlie talked a lot now. He’d talked a lot before, but now it was near impossible to find a moment he ever shuts up. In calmer moments, when they’re all just...coping, Charlie chimes in occasionally with a one-liner or pun like normal. But on a day to day basis, it’s almost like he’s desperate for there never to be a moment of silence.   
  
  


Schlatt had been having a bad day once, and barked at him to shut up. 

...it had taken a few days to get Charlie to even make a noise after that. 

“I’m sorry!” Charlie screams in his dreams, hands grabbing at his hair and covering his mouth. “I’m sorry-I’m sorry-I can’t help-I promise-” Charlie’s panicked rambling turns to choking, and Carson runs to wake him up.

  
  
Travis doesn’t play video games. Travis leaves the room whenever the movie has gunshots. Travis doesn’t take off his new headphones much. Travis’s possible reasons for doing this terrify Carson too much to ask. Travis hates the colour red.

Carson hesitatingly asks if Travis wants to talk, the morning after Carson had shocked himself awake from Travis’s dreams being stained with scarlet.

“You look tired.” Is all Travis says instead of answering his question, arms wrapped around and hugging himself. “Have you been sleeping?” Carson takes a moment too long to respond, and Travis’s expression contorts into pain. “That’s what I thought…”

  
  


Carson doesn’t sleep. He doesn’t, he can’t, not anymore. Whenever he sleeps, he has nightmares, and they’re not his own. His mind is running constantly even when unconscious, full of stress and fear and screaming.   
  


“I’m fine.” Carson stutters, lightly pushing off Noah’s assisting hand and Charlie’s worried questioning. “I just-I wasn’t looking where I was going and stumbled it’s not...are you guys okay though?”

He pointedly ignores how they exchange glances. It’s okay. He’s okay. But they’re not, and he needs to fix it.

Carson goes into the lounge in the early hours of the morning, resigned to yet another sleepless night, when he's surprised to find it already occupied.

Schlatt is talking to Wilbur. Carson can’t see much from the angle he’s on, but Wilbur looks exhausted too. But they both seem content.

Charlie’s holding his phone up for Schlatt, and chattering along happily. He’s not stopping any time soon that’s for sure. But he doesn’t sound desperate.

Cooper, Noah, Travis and Ted are playing Mario Kart. Travis is winning, obviously, and he flinches every time someone groans or playfully glares, but he relaxes whenever Cooper thinks no ones looking and moves closer, and when Noah’s shoulder punch turns into a half hug, his other arm healed but resting at his side.

Ted just spots him and gives him a grin. It’s a smaller grin than what he’s been flashing nowadays…

But it’s real. 

That’s all that matters to Carson.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed! Thank you so much for the positive response on the first two chapters! I aim to get out a more fun chapter later on today, but for now I hope you like this one? Sorry for the kind of sudden change of tone heh, I was just motivated to write and this is what I did, so fuck it, let’s post ya know? 
> 
> Thank you all again!!! Your support means the world


	4. Skate Skate Skate Senora

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mmmm this is bad but it was just going to sit in my notes if I didn't post it so badly written Cooper panic attack go brrrr

Cooper had been nervous the whole way there, and it was the bad kind.

Not that there was a good kind. Or, was there? Did being excited count as nervousness? Or was it called giddy? Those didn’t count as nervousness though, unless they did-

_Focus_.

He takes a deep breath.

“Is this a bad idea?” Cooper asks, keeping one foot on the skateboard and he turns back around to Ted. He winces from the brightness of the street light, even though Ted is clinging to it like a moth.

“The thing is probably going to catch fire, of course I t’s a bad idea.” Ted says lazily, “you should do it anyway.”

Cooper starts to push the skateboard back and forth with his foot. He likes to think he has enough self-control to not do that, thank you Ted, but...

The thought of fucking this up is messing with his head.

“Maybe we should start small…” Cooper says finally, ignoring the incredulous look Ted gives him for it.

“Cooper did not just ask that.”

“Ted needs his hearing checked then, cause Cooper did.”

“Well, you know what Ted thinks would be a better idea?”

Cooper narrows his eyes and drops the bit. “If you say heeleys I swear to god Ted-“

“Okay well then I don’t have a better idea.”

Cooper makes an annoyed noise, and his heart rate begins to pick up, which damn it is the opposite of what it should be doing.

“You’ll be fine man.” Ted tries dismissively, and it’s almost more annoying than the buzzing that starts to pick back up in his brain.

“Christ Ted, Care factor?” Cooper snaps, beginning to furiously tap his foot without realising it.

“Woah hey, don’t dent the concrete dude-“

The street light flickers, and Ted visibly tenses up.

“God, fuck. Fuck!” Cooper walks a few feet away from the skateboard and begins to pace. “Breathe, breathe, breathe,” he mutters, but he seems to just take that as a breath faster.

He doesn’t want this to go wrong. Because if it goes wrong he doesn’t know what he’ll have left. He can’t stream anymore, can’t do social media, can barely sit still long enough to play video games, he can’t sleep, he actually has to eat more now which is fun, he can’t even fucking take baths without sobbing and having a freak out like a little pathetic bitch-

“Uh, Cooper? You’re burning up the skatepark a little bud.” Ted suddenly says warningly, and Cooper yelps and skids to a stop. 

“Fuck!”

  
He can't even fucking pace!  
  


Cooper walks, or runs maybe he can’t even tell anymore, back other to his skateboard, and he hates how looking at it now makes him nauseous. It wasn’t supposed to do that. It was supposed to be safe. He was supposed to still have something safe. He needed to still have just _one_ thing that was safe. 

If only he had a way of knowing how this would go. At least even if he fucks it up he could save himself another disappointment-

Cooper’s head snaps up and over to Ted. That’s it.

“Check my future.”

It’s hard to see in the dark, but Ted seems to pale.

“...w-what?”

“Check my future to see if I pull it off.”

Ted’s expression hardens. “No.” 

“What, you chicken?” Cooper taunts, although he’s honestly not even sure what he’s saying at this rate. His brain has picked up the speed and left him for dust.

“I’m not the one freaking out,” Ted says slowly, and Cooper just stalks over to him. He must have been going faster than he thought, because Ted lets out a surprised yell. Cooper just snarls in his face.

“Come on, just touch my forehead and do your weird shit. I know you can do it, Carson told me, so do it. Ted. Ted do it I swear to fuck-“ 

Is he even making sense right now? Words are just happening. He thinks shit is blurry, is it blurry? Does he need glasses, why can’t he breathe-

“Jesus Cooper can you slow down a little?!”

Did he just ask that? Seriously? Jesus Christ can he take anything seriously, that was a joke wasn’t it, so now Ted,s fucking making fun of him?! Screw him!

“Slow down?! Slow down?! You think I’d fucking slow down if I could, you slow down man, you fucking slow down, okay? Fuck off, touch my forehead!”

“I’m not touching your dumb skater boy sweaty forehead!”

He can see that Ted is getting more worked up, but _good_. He's been acting like everything is okay since this fucking started, while everyone else had their meltdowns, while everyone else cared, this fucker was just by the sidelines like nothing even happened and it made Cooper furious. 

Ted was starting to get upset, and somewhere in the shaking bees nest of his head a thought shouts _it’s about time._

“JUST DO IT PUSSY!”

“I DON’T WANT TO SEE YOU DIE AGAIN ASSHOLE!” Ted finally screams, and Cooper’s brain slams into a brick wall.

Ted just pants heavily before clenching his fists.

“What-what-what-” Cooper smacks himself in the head. It makes his breathing turn into a jolted gasp, but the temporary reboot does the trick. “What the fuck do you mean?” He asks now that he’s not sounding like a broken record, but he soon wishes he never said anything at all.

Ted’s eyes are so furious that Cooper stumbles back a step, and suddenly everything is racing once more.

_Fight? Run? Fight-no, Ted, Run? Ted-_

“DO YOU KNOW WHAT HAPPENS WHEN I DO THAT?! YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT I’LL SEE?! I SEE YOU DIE, COOPER, CAUSE I SEE EVERYTHING ALL AT ONCE CAUSE I CAN’T FUCKING CONTROL IT!”

**_Loud_ **.

“Woah, Woah, Ted, fucking hell, chill-“

“FUCK YOU MAN! YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT COULD HAPPEN? FINE!”

And then suddenly Ted’s hand is gripping around his wrist. 

Ted’s grin is too wide, too wide and the warning bells in Cooper head shriek again this skull. “Let’s start with the nice ones, shall we? Oh look, we got a grazed knee, that’s fun, twisted ankle too, a broken leg, nope, two, look at that-” 

Cooper squirms and tries to jerk his hand away, voice shaky. “Ted, stop it right now-“

The grip gets tighter. Ted’s not even looking at him, he’s looking at something Cooper can’t see, and the way Ted’s voice is starting to get more intense it’s not pretty-

Tight. He's still going.

“-open fracture, hit by a car, BLEED TO DEATH, CHOKING, CRACKED SKULL, IMPALED, SNAPPED NECK-“

Too tight. Too tight. Too tight. It’s too tight tight _tighttighttighttightlethimgopleaserunlethimgonotagainrunnotagainhedoesn’twanttogobackpleaserunlet_ -

“DUDE STOP YOU’RE FUCKING HURTING ME!” Cooper screams, kneeing him in the stomach on instinct and causing Ted to stumble back with wide suspiciously wet eyes. 

But for all Cooper is seeing they’re just cold and calculating and not Ted at all he’s back there he-

Cooper clutches his wrist close to his chest and tries to remember how to breathe. He can’t breathe. He can’t-he doesn’t know how to-he-no he's-where is-

Cooper’s vision is starting to show flashes of sanitised white and blaring alarm red, and no no no-

Cooper digs his hands against his eyes.

“I’m not there I’m not there-“

“You’re not.” Ted interrupts, voice intentionally loud and cutting. Copper just makes a small strangled noise that if he were in a clearer state of mind he would have never forgiven himself for making. “Cooper, we’re at the skatepark. It’s night time, because we didn’t want anyone seeing us.” He keeps talking. Cooper forces himself to focus on the words. Words like street and dinner and safe.

Words he never heard back there.

Breathe.

Cooper finally forces himself to look at Ted. Ted’s standing stiff as the lamp post, and his eyes are shining.

Ted didn’t care.

...but yes he did. Ted helps. Ted keeps them grounded. Ted offered to come out in the middle of the night for this when he didn’t have to. Even though he was...

Cooper glances at the street light, that flickers out once more and makes Ted flinch. 

...Fuck.

“Cooper I’m sorry-”

“I’m such a fucking dick.” Cooper interrupts bitterly, and Ted gapes.

“WOAH-”

Cooper stares. He can’t do anything else, Ted’s expression is just so astonished it temporarily knocks out all thoughts and he-

“Are you-are you laughing now?” Ted asks, and Cooper just lets out another near-hysterical giggle, flopping down on the cold concrete chuckling.

“Christ you’ve cracked,” Ted says, only half-joking, and Cooper snorts unattractively, even as the energy starts to slowly drain out of him. 

Seems like no skateboarding again tonight.

His head thumps against the cold ground. He wants to sleep. But brain isn’t shutting up.

“...what happened to us man?” Cooper asks, and Ted sits down as well, still leaning up against the light. Cooper can hear Ted telling himself to breathe for a moment before he answers.

“Oh, you know, superpowers, trauma, the usual.”

Trauma. 

~The big word.~

“...are we ever going to...be okay again?” Cooper finds himself asking, while his brain starts to connect the dots between the stars in the sky.

“We weren’t exactly okay before,” Ted tries to joke. Cooper's just too tired. 

“Ted.”

“...Yeah.” Ted says finally, looking away when Cooper’s eyes flick over. He gives Cooper a shaky but soft smile. “We’re going to be okay Cooper.” 

They both know he’s lying.

“Thanks,” Cooper says anyways, even though what he really wants to say is sorry.

Then the street light chooses this moment to go out, and everything goes to shit again.

His skateboard rolls away from the force of Cooper dashing over to stop Ted from screaming.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The alternative title to this should be “well that fucking escalated quickly”
> 
> The chapter I’m posting after this is going to be a complete crack banter fire to h e a l  
> They were gonna be posted together but since I finished this and there’s a chance I might not finish the other tonight, I went fuck it and now I’m posting this I guess.
> 
> I’m really sorry if this is bad!!! Jsjsjsj, but also gosh, thank you for reading and the support holy fuck I don’t deserve that y’all, ya too nice


	5. *blinks* wait what the fuck is this chapter about again?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *laughs in definitely OOC*

“Hey Charlie, do you reckon you could make individual parts of you bigger and smaller?”

“...There’s a very low hanging joke to be made here, and I’m gonna be very disappointed if either one of us makes it.” Charlie responds slowly, and Noah chuckles as he takes a seat at the table. “Why do you ask?”

“Just thinking about you, you just walk around with a big ass fucking fist.”

“That’s deep dude.” Charlie jokes, before thinking about it himself and letting out a giggle. “That would be something huh. I’d just go up to people like, thumbs-ups guys! PWOOSH!“ 

“You’d be able to hold it up for two seconds before it makes you crash to the ground.”

Charlie cringes playfully. “Mmm, that’s not so thumbs up.”

“Okay, new idea then, big feet. Can’t crash what’s already on the ground.”

“Bigfoot?” Charlie just asks, and Noah nods seriously.

“You become cryptid.”

“I am the cryptid Noah-“

“You are the cryptid.” He echos in sync, and Charlie snickers.

“You could probably pull off becoming a cryptid too,” Charlie says, and Noah almost looks proud. “You just like, break into people’s houses and draw on their faces while they sleep.”

Noah blinks slowly. “...Charlie that isn’t even relevant to my fucking power-“

“Yeah, I guess you could have done that anyways.”

“How do you know I didn’t?” Noah says, expression suddenly unreadable, and Charlie’s eyes go exaggeratedly wide.

“...shiiiiiit.”

They fall into amused silence. Charlie starts to snicker, and Noah curiously raises his eyebrows.

“Take you time?” Noah says, which makes Charlie laugh harder and hold up his finger to signal he’s going to need a minute.

“Okay okay-What if I-what if I just made my head really big and the rest of my body super small?” Charlie finally squeaks out, and Noah looks at him like he just  _ grew _ a second head.

“You’d snap your fucking neck!”

“I’d be headman!”

“You’ve be  _ dead _ man!” Noah cuts off, shaking his head in amusement. Charlie gets another idea and starts to giggle again.

“Can you fucking imagine that? A superhero who’s power is just being fucking dead. Not-not undead, like, they’re just a corpse.”

“They’re a corpse the superhero team found one day that they just carry around.”

Charlie puts on an exaggerated news reporter accent. “And the day is saved thanks to-Oh my god his ear fell off. Ohhh there’s dead person gunk everywhere. Oh god.”

“The villain shows up to rob the back and see these people carrying around a dead body and they just leave.” 

“ _ Yeah, I’m not touching that. That’s fucked up _ !” 

“ _ I kill babies, but even I know that’s sick,”  _ Noah adds, and Charlie chokes.

“Dude, they kill babies?!”

Noah laughs genuinely, but he’s starting to get tense. It’s something they all do when they joke about death related things now, even if it’s to cope. Charlie doesn’t want to think about it, but even he can’t ignore That wounds are still too raw.

There’s a fine line that they’re both doing circus tricks on right now, and they’re both too caught up in it to care on whether or not they’re losing balance.

“Can you sue a corpse?”

“You can certainly try.”

“Yeah I don’t think trying would be the issue there.”

“Didn’t they-didn’t they fucking try that though once?” Charlie asks, and Noah stares blankly.

“...Pardon?”

“I could have sworn Ted mentioned a pope that dug up a dead body to put on trial and scream at.”

“A  _ pope _ ?”

“Popes are fuuuucked up man.”

“Dude don’t say that Jesus is listening!”

“ _ Sorry Jesus _ .”

He has no idea what the fuck even happened to this conversation. Or why Noah even started talking to him to begin with. It wasn’t that Noah was...quiet after they finally got back, but...he was silent enough that this conversation now almost feels like a weight lifted off Charlie’s shoulders.

“Wonder if any of that is actually possible though?” Noah asks. Charlie sobers a little, and starts to think.

Could he do stuff like that? On paper, he guessed it’d work. Isn’t growing and shrinking just like stretching anyways? And there was that thing that happened back at the town too...

“I don’t think I’m gonna ever try.” Charlie finds himself muttering, and Noah looks surprised at the change of tone, before adapting quickly with understanding filling his eyes.

“It’s just, yeah, real talk I...I...don’t really want to experiment with my powers.” Charlie continues when Noah doesn’t say anything. “I can still hardly control what I can do  _ now _ .” He nervously wrings his hands, and starts to focus so that his powers don’t give in to the universe's cruel sense of comedic timing and prove his point.

“Ain’t that the truth,” Noah says playfully, and Charlie mock glares,

“I still don’t forgive you guys for the outside thing. It was  _ cold _ !”

Noah laughs as Charlie exaggeratedly shivers, before sighing.

“Yeah I...get it,” Noah confesses. “Sometimes when I’m about to freeze time, I panic because, what if I forget how to start it again? What if I just get stuck?”

“What if someone draws a dick on  _ you _ ,” Charlie adds, noticing that Noah was starting to fall offlittle. Noah shoots him a grateful smile, before continuing.

“Yeah, that’ll never happen. I’m basically the dick king now.”

“And you’re proud of being referred to with that title?

“Hell yeah!”

“Well, now I hope you realise you’ve made it my goal to draw a dick on you.”

“I’m scared.”

“I’m gonna shrink and mission impossible my way through your bedroom.”

“Well now you told me your plan and I’m just gonna put up mouse traps.” 

Charlie flinches, and Noah’s eyes widen.

“Shit-Sorry I totally forgot-“

“I didn’t!” Charlie jokes, and it falls flat. “...Seriously, Noah, it’s fine.”

“...but yeah. I get not wanting to test shit. But we got all the time in the world for figuring this out.”

“Yeah I…” Charlie cuts off. His expression goes dangerous.

Noah realises what he did too late. “Oh no no that was an accident-“

“You made a pun~.” 

“No I didn’t-”

“I knew this time would come!”

Noah slides out his chair and glares.

“I’m leaving.”

“Do you want me to stop?”

“Bye Charlie!” Noah just says, and waves as he leaves the room. Charlie grins.

“Time to clock out hey?” He calls, expression delighted even as he sighs and leans back in his chair.

“...So that happened.” He chirps finally, before he catches his reflection in the window and freezes.

Oh that fucker.

“DID YOU SERIOUSLY  _ WRITE _ BIG DICK ON MY FOREHEAD?!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...Yeah look I don’t know what this was either
> 
> Hope these two chapters were alright though! They’re kind of messy heh, but oh well. Also I know I keep saying this, but I am actually gonna cry focus on the Cryptid au for a bit now, so it might be a while until the next chapter! Or, well, who knows I guess. I kind of just write whatever my brain allows me to write at the time, sorry about a lack of schedule 
> 
> Love y’all!


	6. The girls are fighting~~~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember how I said it’d be a whole until I updated this again?  
> Yeah then I went and impulse wrote this and am now posting it, let this be a lesson here kids, trust no one, especially sleep deprived writers

“WE CAN’T JUST SAY NOTHING SCHLATT!”

They were at it again.

“WE CAN FUCKING TRY!”

“Schlatt, We can’t live like this, we only have this place because Travis-”

“Exactly! Travis’s luck has it sorted, we don’t need to do shit!”

“Everything wasn’t fucking ‘sorted’ in the town! We all almost died. We can’t just rely on Travis’s luck for everything!”

Cooper shoots him a look, and Travis just shakes his head. “Four.” He whispers, and Cooper rolls the dice.

“Why not Noah? Why not?! I don’t know about you but I’m perfectly happy living like this if it means we never have to go back there!”

“You didn’t even go there the second time! If anyone has a reason to be scared-“

“Oh don’t give me that fucking shit.”

Travis wishes he had his headphones. Cooper just nudges him awkwardly, and points at the dice, the four side showing up.

“God, do you ever fucking care about someone other than yourself?!”

“O-Of course I fucking care asshole!”

“Well, you don’t act like it! We don’t all have an outside emotional support like you okay-“

“Ohhhh that's fucking bullshit, like you didn’t let Carson call Josh as soon as we got home despite me fucking saying not to-”

“Six,” Travis says quickly, and Cooper rolls the dice. 

“You’re not fucking in charge Schlatt! You don’t get to decide what we all can and can not do just cause you’re scared-“

“Well maybe we should have someone in charge! Cause at the rate we’re going, we might as well just fucking hand ourselves back in fucking gift wrapped!”

“Oh, get over yourself!”

Cooper gives him a shaky smile. “Right again.” He tries, knocking his leg against Travis. Travis flinches.

“I’M NOT FUCKING RISKING GOING BACK!”

“DON'T YOU GET IT IDIOT?! HIDING AWAY LEAVES US JUST AS TRAPPED!”

“M.” Travis chokes out, and Cooper raises an eyebrow.

Schlatt slams the newspaper to the ground and storms out of the room. Noah sneers as he watches him go.

“Travis you’re lucky but you’re not lucky enough to change what’s on the surface of a dice-“

”Just-“

A branch from outside slams against the window with a horrifyingly loud bang, and Cooper yelps, tossing the dice in panic. Travis clamps his hands instinctively over his ears and tries to push back the sudden onslaught of memories. Noah is just frozen where he stands. There’s a distant thud and curse from somewhere in the hallway, but none of them are in a state to register it.

“God, fuck.” Cooper breathes out, clutching his heart. “Every time.” Travis just whimpers and curls into a ball.

None of them see that the dice landed on the M in missing on the newspaper.


	7. Flashback time!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is probably a mundo lore dump, but I found it while looking through old one shots and didn't want to forget about it again, so Merry Christmas!

The scientists didn't know what Carson's powers were yet. In fact, he was pretty sure a majority have given up on the thought he even had any. Carson intended to keep it that way.

But it _did_ make figuring out how they work difficult.

Wilbur's voice is soft and melodic, and there was a smile even though it was exhausted and sad. His fingers are playing the guitar, but not really. It’s music is playing a haze that’d exist even if Wilbur didn't know the chords.

It’s peaceful. Carson's on edge.

Whenever he wakes someone up, it’s not always immediate. Sometimes the nightmare is enough to start them awake. But other times they keep dreaming, and always find themselves here.

Carson doesn’t like it here. In this pure white plane. It’s a step up, usually, from the nightmare before it, but it’s empty and unnatural.

He always wants to leave as soon as he arrives. Normally, whoever he’s with, wants to leave too.

But not Wilbur.

“Can we just...a little longer?” Wilbur had said, and Carson had swallowed at the other man's open and nervous tone. “Just, stay here for a bit before...going back there.”

“....okay.”

It had been nice, admittedly. Listening to Wilbur sing was a privilege Carson hadn’t had in what felt like forever. But after a while the place started to get to him. After a while he started to feel hands crawling on the back of his neck.

Carson shudders noticeably as something brushes across his left ear, and Wilbur pauses playing.

“Is everything alright?” Wilbur asks, eyebrows furrowed.

Carson squeezes his eyes shut and tries not to start shivering. “Can we please get out of here now?”

“I...” Wilbur's hands tense around the guitar, “Can we not just-“

“Wilbur _please._ ” Carson chokes out, “I know you don’t want to be put through everything again and I don’t either but I-“ Wilbur yelps as Carson suddenly screams and stands to his feet, eyes wide.

“Carson? What’s going on?”

“S-something just touched my hand something just-“ Carson lets out a shaky gasp and digs his hands into his head- “they’re touching my hair I can’t- Wilbur there's other things in _here_ we need to-“ something invisible swipes at his arm and Carson screams, stumbling back where Wilbur thankfully catches him.

“Carson there's-there's nothing here?”

“Just wake up Wilbur _please_ , please just fucking wake up I swear, I’m fucking begging you right now man-“

“I...Okay, okay, here’s the plan.” Wilbur stutters, and he presses down a little where he’s holding onto Carson to try ground him. Something brushes against Carson's nose and he flinches back. “The things in here are only affecting you, right? So, why don’t _you_ wake up?”

Nails starts trailing down Carson's left arm and he grabs it away, clutching it to his chest and breathing heavily. “Can-can I do that???”

“You’re asleep right now too aren’t you?”

...

Is he?

Carson blinks. “I...I can try. I mean, it’s worth a shot but-but what if that means you can’t wake up?”

He doesn’t like the look that briefly flashes in Wilbur's eye at all.

“I’ll be fine! You said everyone else wakes up and gets out of this right? Worst case scenario, I get stuck, and you can just come back here for me!”

_There's so many of them now, swarming like bees, invisible and desperate like ghosts. Carson never wants to fucking come back here again._

“Deal.”

Carson squeezes his eyes shut and breathes, but this time with a mission in mind. Just wake. 

Up. 

He’s falling 

He’s 

They’re

  
  


Carson wakes up in his cell.

“I-I did it!” Carson yells, looking around the barren room with a grin. “Ha! I’m alone and I’m-“

He blinks. 

“Standing?”

Carson rubs at his eyes a few times, and lifts his feet off the ground. He’s...in the middle of his room? His whole body feels...weird right now. 

Carson swallows, but there’s no taste, no feeling, no nothing. Like he’s still...

Carson glances over to his cell bed and screeches.

“WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU SERIOUS-“

His body is still asleep.

“What the fuck,” Carson scrambles over to the bed and looks over the unconscious body, _his_ fucking body, what the absolute f u c k?! 

He slaps his sleeping face and it goes right through.

The expression on both versions of Carson twist.

“Nnghhhh don’t like that.”

“Okay I...okay.” Carson claps without sound, and tries to breath again. “Okay, run over the list of what I know. Uh, my powers can put me in other people’s dreams. Uh, this **sucks** , that’s another thing on the _list of things I know_ , uhm...I can...” 

Carson's eyes flicker over to the locked cell door.

“...I can go _through_ things...”

Carson hesitantly walks over to the door, and puts his hand to it.

It goes through, and Carson takes a step back.

“Huh.” He says, before jabbing his hand through the door again. And again. And again.

Carson starts to near hysterically laugh, “ _Oh my god_.”

Carson takes a deep breath, and steps through to the other side of the door. He immediately walks into someone.

“Oh, sorry I-“ Carson starts, stepping back, before realising the person just continued walking like nothing happened. “I-...I'm invisible huh?” 

Carson takes in the clinical looking hallway and his expression splits into a grin as he repeats, “I'm _invisible_.”

Carson's expression then scrunches up.

“I COULD HAVE FUCKING DONE THIS THE WHOLE TIME?!”

He groans and tries to hit his head against the nearby wall, but stops himself when he realises he would have just phased through. He puts his head in his hands instead.

“Erughhh I could have been spying on this stupid facility and figuring out a way to escape the whole time.”

“Okay let’s just,” he starts looking between the two directions. “Not dwell on the past. The past sucks. Fuck that guy. Let’s just...”

“Rights always right, right? Right. _Right_.” Carson takes a deep breath and starts walking forwards, muttering right to himself.

“Okay, what kind of things should I be looking for here anyways? An exit, would be nice, but...maybe a control room? Files? Or,” his eyes light up a little, “the others. Definitely find the others first.” 

Carson starts to poke his head through the walls every now and then as he walks. “Now if I was an idiot, where would I be..”

It’s about that time that Carson picks up on a scream. A very familiar angry scream.

  
  
  


Schlatt hated tests.

“I'M NOT GOING TO FUCKING DO IT!” Schlatt yells, thrashing against the nameless scientists holding him. “WHAT, YOU THINK JUST CAUSE YOU CAN STRIP ME FROM MY HOME YOU CAN STRIP ME OF MY FREE WILL TOO?! FUCK OFF, YOU GO GET INSIDE YOUR OWN FUCKING METAL CONTAINER.” 

Schlatt tries to glitch out of their hold, but the glowing metal around his wrists prevents him from doing so, and suddenly he’s shoved into a room made of the stuff, and the handcuffs fall off when the door shuts. 

Schlatt glowers. “Oh yeah, real fucking mature sticking me in a fucking room I can’t get out off! Hey, why don't we try to make this fair for once? Just give me a wall I can go through, then let’s see how confident you are!”

The speaker in the corner of the room turns on.

“ **Do you ever shut up**?” It crackles, and Schlatt flashes a sharp grin.

“Nope!”

  
  


Meanwhile, Carson had broken into a sprint just in time to see his friend get thrown into a room. He cusses, then phases into the door next to it, to where a group of scientists are watching through one sided glass. 

Carson cringes, and stands a good few feet away from them despite them not posing any real threat. Schlatt is talking big game through the speakers right now, but Carson's stomach twists. His friend is pacing around the room like an anxious caged animal backed into a corner, and as every second passes the anger in Schlatt's voice starts to pitch up into something else.

Carson forces himself to look away and start searching the room. There’s got to be _something_.

“What’s-whats even the fucking test here?” Schlatt asks, pointedly ignoring how he stumbles over his words that time. His shoulder raise. “You’re just gonna-what? Leave me fucking in here?! Hey! Big guy who just spoke, what the fuck is your goal here?! Wanna fill me in?!”

There’s deafening silence.

Schlatt's form glitches a little, and meanwhile in the next room, Carson's head snaps up as one of the scientist start jotting something down. Carson watches Schlatt hunch in on himself more as he keeps yelling, and it clicks.

“Those fuckers are trying to get him to freak out...”

Carson can only watch uselessly as Schlatt's form begins to glitch a little more.

“H-HEY! CAN I GET ANOTHER FUCKING ANSWER AGAIN?! WHAT, YOU CAN INSULT ME BUT NOT-“ Schlatt's seems to notice he’s glitching this time, and the result is instantaneous. “Ohhhh no no no no-“ Schlatt laughs and his eyes dart around wildly. “Oh we're not-we're not doing this-“ 

Schlatt cuts off as the glitch gets bigger this time, and his breathing hitched up as he desperately backs himself up against the wall.

“This isn’t-this isn’t **fair** , you don’t just let me have my powers back just so it can-“ there’s another glitch, and Schlatt flinches so bad he whacks his head hard against the metal and spirals further.

“YOU CAN'T FUCKING DO THIS!” Schlatt screams, and Carson feels fucking _sick_ as all the scientists just-just **_write_ ** , they don’t even _care-_

Schlatt's next scream sounds more like a sob, and Carson can’t take it, and he jumps down into the next room.

“Okay I’m-” Carson yelps as Schlatt's form glitches violently, and he quickened his pace over to his friend, too panicked to notice that when he places his hands on his friend's shoulders they don’t go through. “Schlatt you need to, you need to calm down right now, I know you can’t hear me but freaking out is exactly what they’re trying to get you to do.”

Schlatt doesn’t respond, just continues to twitch and spit out hysteric curses, knees buckling a little. His eyes a wild and panicked, like the animal those fucking sickos only see them as, and Carson's grip on Schlatt's shoulders gets firmer.

“ **Schlatt**.” Carson urges, not freaking out this time at the glitch that follows. 

“What-“ Schlatt's eyes focus onto his and Carson let out a small shocked gasp.

“C-car-“ Schlatt starts, only for Carson to frantically shush him. Schlatt quickly corrects himself. “Uh-God?” Carson gives him a look and Schlatt smiles sheepishly, before panicking as another glitch courses through him and curling back in on himself. “Fuck, fuck,”

Carson can distantly hear one of the scientists mutter, “ **Jesus fuck did he snap?** ” Which at least confirms that no one can see him.

“Yep, it’s God, here to tell you that you need to chill the **fuck** out.”

Schlatt lets out a pained and still terrified laugh.

“Gee, thanks God, could never have reached that conclusion myself.” Schlatt hisses dryly, only to keep glitching and let out mortifying wounded whimper.

Carson's heart breaks and Schlatt just makes himself smaller, glitching and cursing violently. “I didn’t-I didn't just-you're God so you have to be merciful and pretend that never happened-“

Carson wraps Schlatt into a hug and his fellow subject tenses. “Dude, shut your gay ass the actual fuck up.” Carson mutters in half bemusement, and Schlatt buries his head into Carson's shoulder, breathing beginning to regulate again and the glitches starting to slow. Almost unnaturally.

“...can't believe God just called me gay.” Schlatt sniffs, and Carson lets out a wheeze despite himself, even if he frowns when the next noise Schlatt makes is a yawn.

  
  
  


A scientist steps closer to the glass, and watches as the subjects form lowers and stills to the ground, chest now slowly rising and glitching halted entirely as it sleeps.

“...What the fuck.” He finally says, turning to the others. “How do we even report-what even just happened there exactly? Everything was going fine and then the subject just-cracked.”

“It was like it was talking to someone. At least we know he’s,,,religious, apparently?” Another says nervously, ignoring how the first barks out a laugh and mutters something along the lines of ‘there is no God here’. “R-Regardless of that, this was a failure, Boss is going to have our heads for not getting the results.”

The first one tenses in agreement, then glances at their third co-worker, who's just silent.

“Something on your mind?” The first scientist asks, and the one who Carson had bumped into smiles.

“Oh nothing.” They say finally, making direct eye contact with the near transparent form of the subject, who freezes in horror. “Just thinking to myself...”


	8. I had several chapters planned to post before this one and yet-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me? Posting two pre written Schlatt meltdowns next to each other? It’s more likely than you think
> 
> This is actually almost technically a flash forward, actually, since this is set after the boys semi have gotten back in the swing on things and opened back up to the public. And by swing off things I mean they’ve gotten onto the swing, and promptly all fallen flat on their dumb faces. 
> 
> GOD NO BUT ACTUALLY FUCK POSTING THE TIMELINE IN ORDER ALL MY HOMIES HATE POSTING IN ORDER
> 
> We out here impulse posting shit we wrote months ago on discord and we don’t even care, nyaaaaa
> 
> (We do care, we care a lot, please don’t hate me-)

It wasn’t that Travis was hurt Schlatt had laughed when he’d given him the headphones. Well, maybe he might have been, at the time, but now he was just…

Frustrated. He was frustrated. Maybe even _angry_.

Because Schlatt was an idiot.

He didn’t understand why he was so determined to prove he was unaffected by all this. Why he was too stubborn to admit he was scared. Schlatt kept acting like he was going to, what, be seen as weak? They were _all_ scared. 

Travis was determined to prove to him that there wasn’t anything wrong with that.

Travis thinks it’s been...maybe a few months now? Since they were in that...place. Maybe it’s actually just been a few weeks. It _feels_ like it’s been a while at least.

They’d finally managed to convince Schlatt to try making a video for his channel. It’d been mostly a team effort from Carson and Charlie, and Travis wasn’t entirely sure how they did it, but they did it.

Schlatt was going to try to make a video today.

A lot of the others seemed excited about it.

Travis was reasonably terrified.

“You’re overthinking things,” Cooper says, when Travis had finally given up pacing outside Schlatt's door to express his concerns in his room. “Look, it’s Schlatt. All he’s got to do is yell a lot and break things.”

_That's why I’m worried._ Travis doesn’t say. He just wordlessly leaves.

Travis goes over to Schlatt door, ignoring the way his brain screams at him.

_He doesn’t want you there. He doesn’t want help. He doesn’t want you, just leave him-_

Travis ignores it and knocks softly on the door.

The faint shuddering whimper he hears when he does confirms his worries.

“Schlatt I’m gonna come in,” Travis says softly, and there’s no response. Travis takes a deep breath and opens the door.

Schlatt's room is bright, and Travis cringes a little because of it. It takes him a moment to even find Schlatt, before he spots him under his desk, hands clamped firmly on his ears and curled up small, eyes squeezed shut and breathing irregular.

Travis's fist clenched in his pockets slightly. _Dang it Schlatt._

“I'm walking over,” Travis says, before he spots a certain pair of headphones sitting haphazardly on Schlatt's desk. He furrows his brow a little, but takes them and leans down. 

“Schlatt? Can you hear me?” He asks, and Schlatt flinches which he takes as a yes. “I’m gonna put the headphones on you, is that okay?”

Schlatt stiffens up, and Travis can see the internal battle going on in his head. Travis almost thinks he’s about to get yelled at, but then Schlatt gives him a tiny nod.

_Okay Travis. You can do this. It’s not luck, this is something you can do. Come on._

“You probably yelled a little too loud,” Travis says, relieved, watching as Schlatt's breathing already starts to improve. “You um, that’s what happened the other day too. In the bit. That’s why you left?” Travis words it like a question, even though he knows he won’t get an answer.

“It’s not fair,” Travis mumbles eventually, shifting to sit more comfortably. “That we can’t, do things the same anymore. There are games that are out now I was really excited for, but then I realised I can’t...play them. I didn’t expect it to hurt so much.”

Travis just keeps talking. He knows he doesn’t really have the best _audience_ per se, but it feels...nice. To just be open. At one point he did get up to turn off the lights though, when he noticed how Schlatt flinched as he tried to open up his eyes again. 

Eventually though, Schlatt shifts, and Travis glances over to see the headphones now only covering one ear. 

“...I ever tell you guys what happened? Back in the town?”

Travis blinks, but forces himself to look away from Schlatt so he doesn’t see his expression of shock. Schlatt didn’t really ever...talk about things, well, ever, but Travis could pick up at least that the guy didn’t really like making eye contact whenever he did.

“You know the family?” Schlatt continues, Travis noting his voice is a little hoarse. “You played with the dogs there for a bit before disappearing.”

Travis nods, thinking about how he and Carson had barely escaped. Schlatt had told them to run, and they had.

...Travis didn’t think he liked where this was going.

“He tried to kill me. The farmer.” Schlatt finally says bluntly, and Travis makes a noise of distress. “Didn’t even hide his intentions. He wasn’t even hesitant about it, like it was-was as simple as hunting a rabbit. Like that’s all I _was_ .” Travis opens his mouth to say something, but Schlatt is barrelling on now, probably not able to stop. “He just kept casually fucking, _talking_ to me, while I was hiding for my life in that stupid barn. He kept saying how stupid I was for getting you guys to leave. How I was useless and pathetic. How I probably only made it this far on, on relying on others...and now I’m going to die alone.”   
  


Schlatt laughs.

Travis's expression had been going increasingly horrified the entire time, but it’s with that last sentence he starts to tear up. Schlatt notices this and grumbles, shoulders tense.

“It’s nothing.”

“What?! No-No it’s _not_ Schlatt-“

“Just-Just drop it! I’m only telling you this because I’m-because I’m _sorry_.”

“...What?”

“...When you gave me those stupid headphones it was like I was back in that barn, being told I was useless unless I relied on others. Asking for help became so-so _twisted_ in my mind, that being _given_ help? I just, I couldn’t. It was like I was being told I really couldn’t cope on my own.”

“Schlatt I’m sorr-“

“Let me finish.”

“I was _wrong_ Travis. I-I tried to convince myself that I didn’t need anyone’s help but I _do_ , I really-“ Schlatt cuts off with a noise that sounds a little like a sob, and he turns it into a laugh. “I need help man. But I’ve just been a big idiot this whole time and I locked myself off instead, but I...I can’t do this.”

Travis can see the same bitter self hatred in Schlatt's eyes that he sees everyone morning, and something in him snaps.

“Yes you can.”

“What do you-“ Schlatt lets out a little yelp as Travis suddenly pulls him to his feet. He stumbles a little, but Travis steadies him. 

“How'd you get out of the barn?” Travis asks, and Schlatt's eyes are just wide.

“H-huh?” He uncharacteristically squeaks, and Travis just holds his friend's shoulders firmer.

“How. Did you. Get out.”

The man flounders. “I...There was a loft? Or whatever they’re fucking called, the like, half floor up the top. It was-I mean- _T-Travis what-_ “ Schlatt starts, but Travis can tell he’s starting to get more than a little overwhelmed again, so he changes track.

“So you got out, didn’t you? The man was wrong.”

Schlatt blinks, and Travis repeats himself.

“The man. Was _wrong_.”

Schlatt is just silent, just staring at Travis with a level of shocked vulnerability Travis hadn’t ever seen on him before. Travis doesn’t even know what he’s _doing_ really, and if he mucks this up it could go bad in too many ways, but he refuses to leave this here.

“Schlatt I...You should let us help you more. And it’s-its okay to reach out for help too. But it’s-you're not asking for help cause you’re _weak_ . And-and you’re not useless for needing to rely on others right now but you also...” Travis pauses, and swallows, wanting to make sure he says this right. “Schlatt, you got out of the barn. You can get out of this too. We're here to support you, and be a source for you to lean on, but _you_ can do this. I know you’re strong enough too, but if you-if you need me to remind you that you’re strong enough every day, I will, I’ll come up to you every day and remind you that you can do this, and-and-“

Schlatt's laughing, and suddenly Travis is back to when he first gave him the headphones and he cuts off, thinking the worst.

“...Schlatt I’m sorr-“

Schlatt's hugging him.

Schlatt's-

Oh.

“ _Okay_ ,” Schlatt whispers, almost inaudible, while Travis recovers enough to stop floundering in shock. “I...okay.”

Travis hugs him back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *casually puts in more reference to the backstory and pretends y’all know what the fuck they’re talking about*

**Author's Note:**

> Did those of you who reading it, Chapter Five of the Cryptid AU will be out soon! So don’t worry, I’m not abandoning it heh, I’ve just had a lot of inspiration for this AU as well.   
> A multi-chapter backstory is in the works too, so that’ll start being uploaded whenever it starts being uploaded
> 
> Thank you for reading!!!


End file.
